


Unreasonable Behaviour

by Trillian_Astra



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Crack, Gen, elias keeps divorcing peter and that generates a lot of paperwork, humorous references to divorce, think of the people who have to deal with the paperwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:29:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22589446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trillian_Astra/pseuds/Trillian_Astra
Summary: Every time Peter does something annoying, Elias divorces him (or tries to).Divorces generate paperwork.Pity the people that have to deal with that paperwork.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas
Comments: 7
Kudos: 300





	Unreasonable Behaviour

“Oh no…”

Ellie looked up from the pile of post she was sorting to see her colleague Louise turn pale. “Uh… Lou?”

“Mm?”

“Lou, are you all right? You look really pale…”

“ _He’s back_ ,” Louise whispered.

Before Ellie could ask anything else, a tall middle-aged man in an immaculately tailored suit strode up to the reception desk where she and Louise sat.

He nodded to Louise. “Ms Watkins.”

“Mr Bouchard, hello again. How can I help today?”

“Just dropping off this,” he said, handing over a manila envelope.

“Right, that’s form…”

“Form D8, yes, to progress the divorce.”

Louise was now turning slightly green. “Yes. Of course… I’ll have that sent through to the family court division straight away.

“Thank you.” Then he turned and strode back out.

“Okay,” Ellie said once he was out of the building, “what the hell was that?”

“That… that was Elias Bouchard.” Louise put the envelope down on the desk.

“Who?”

“He’s… actually I’m not sure what he does. He comes in a couple of times a year to hand in a petition to divorce his husband.”

“ _What?”_

Louise handed her the form and Ellie read it quickly. “Okay… petition for divorce on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour…”

“Look at the details underneath.”

Ellie kept reading. “….’he embarrassed me at the Institute Christmas party for the last time’? Huh? Who divorces their husband over _that_?”

“Elias Bouchard does. Since I’ve worked here, he’s handed in twelve petitions for divorce – this’ll be number thirteen. Always on grounds of “unreasonable behaviour”. The reasons have varied… one time it was that his husband set off on a long sea voyage without telling him. One time it was because his husband had made his secretary disappear. Still not sure what that one even meant….”

“Maybe his husband’s in the mafia?”

“Maybe. Actually that’s a pretty good theory… we’ll have to add it to the file.”

“Eh?” Ellie raised an eyebrow. “You have a _file_?”

“Oh. Yeah, we try to keep track. That’s how we realised that none of us had ever met his husband. The petitions all have the name Peter Lukas as the respondent, and you’d think he would have to come in for hearings or mediation, but none of us have actually seen him. Ranjit, you know, the family court clerk, he thinks this is all some elaborate scam and “Peter Lukas” doesn’t even exist.”

“So what, the marriage certificate was a fake too?”

“I honestly wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Does it ever get further than the initial petition?”

“No, usually he comes in here, hands in the petition like he just did, and then about a month later we get a certified letter from his solicitor stating that the petition is withdrawn. And then we get to go back to normal for a while before it starts up again. One time we made it a whole eighteen months between petitions. That was a good eighteen months.”

“Right… maybe I’ll just stick with distributing the post. Seems simpler.”

“You know, I completely understand.”


End file.
